


Mistletoe

by professortennant, whooves



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Christmas fic, Doctor/Rose - Freeform, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-02
Updated: 2013-02-02
Packaged: 2017-11-27 23:43:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/667825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/professortennant/pseuds/professortennant, https://archiveofourown.org/users/whooves/pseuds/whooves
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor and Rose get a surprise during Christmas when Jackie buys some discounted mistletoe in an attempt to push the two of them closer together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mistletoe

The Doctor throws open the TARDIS doors with a wide-armed gesture. 

"Christmastime!" He says it with a grin and bumps Rose's shoulder with his own. She smiles up at him, and he seeks out her hand to lace his fingers through hers. She gives his hand a squeeze and he tucks their hands in his pocket as they head out into the snow.

 

"Surprised you could land on time," she says teasingly, and he gives a mock pout.

"I'll have you know, Rose Tyler," he responds, as they make their way up the steps of the Powell Estate, "I am the best TARDIS driver you will ever meet." He scrunches his face up in her general direction, eliciting a lovely laugh from the blonde on his arm.

“Sure you are,” she says, and clutches at his arm with her free hand. “Thanks for bringing us here though. Mum will be ecstatic.” Her tongue-touched smile stuns him for a second, and he flushes a faint pink.

“Yes,” he flounders, stuttering a bit, “well, you’re welcome. But don’t get used to it, your mother is a frightening force of nature, I just don’t want to get a slap.” He mutters the last bit and Rose giggles, but opens the door nonetheless. Jackie comes bounding out of the kitchen almost on cue.

“Oh, I knew I heard that box, look at you, you’re still alive!” She crushes Rose in a hug. “Merry Christmas! Oh and you!” she continues, grabbing hold of the Doctor, and fighting his attempts at pushing away, she tries to give him a kiss. She finally wins and he makes a displeased face after, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. 

Once she’s complained at him enough for not bringing Rose home to visit, she retreats back into the kitchen, urging them further inside. The Doctor tosses his coat on the couch, and gallantly (if you ask him) helps Rose out of her jacket as well. They both come to rest in the doorway and Jackie goes back to the oven, bustling and stirring a pot (he cringes at the thought of Jackie’s cooking) and Jackie is yammering on about a bundle of bargain mistletoe and sprucing up the place just for them.

The Doctor looks up and then blushes. His arms tense and tighten further around himself where they’re folded against his chest.

“What is it?” Rose lightly asks, and then glances up as well. Her cheeks pinken as well, but she leans in closer to him.

“You don’t have to,” he offers weakly, but she shakes her head, and rises up on her tiptoes to lightly kiss him on the cheek, before hurriedly stepping out of the doorway.

His cheek tingles pleasantly with warmth, and when he steps out of the doorway as well, she takes his hand. 

It’s quite possible that he hold it a bit tighter than usual. After all, if he stays close, maybe they’ll get caught in another doorway.

~  
Fortunately, there seems to be mistletoe in every doorway, as well as hanging from the ceiling in odd places, like above the couch.

This is where they get caught next, when Rose slides against the Doctor’s side as she settles in to watch telly. Her mother looks pointedly at the ceiling, clears her throat, and then leaves the room. 

The Doctor scratches the back of his neck nervously, clearing his throat, and allows his hand to gesticulate wildly, incoherent and noncommittal noises trying to draw Rose’s attention to the mistletoe hanging above them.

Rose shoots him a look that screams, “Have you finally lost it?” before realizing they’ve been caught yet again. She narrows her eyes and throws a look over her shoulder at a suspicious whip of bleach blonde hair disappearing around the corner.

She wants to protest and apologize because nothing is more embarrassing than your mum trying to set you up. With an alien. With mistletoe. While spying on said kisses under said mistletoe with said alien. She’s 20 years old, not 13, and the Doctor is well, the Doctor, not Alexander something or other from Year Seven.

But the Doctor is blushing rather attractively and his body sways, as if unsure whether to lean in or away, trying to gauge Rose’s reaction first. 

She rolls her eyes, wraps a hand around a loosened swirly tie, and tugs him in, “Come ‘ere.”

His lips are wet and warm and she’s had longer kisses from drunk aunts, but it’s the Doctor and he still manages to steal her breath.

When she pulls away and notices he’s a bit out of breath himself, she can’t resist a bit of a tease: “So much for your respiratory bypass, Doctor.” 

Eyes sparkling and mood light and fresh off of a pretty spectacular Rose Tyler kiss, the Doctor can’t quite bring himself to protest about superior Time Lord physiology.

Plus, when Rose lays her head back down on his shoulder and slides a hand to rest on his knee—heavy and warm—he thinks a bit of Jackie Tyler interference with fast-growing mistletoe might be the best Christmas present ever.

———-

But the mistletoe and the nudging and the suspiciously spiked egg nog doesn’t stop after Christmas morning when presents have been opened and wrapping torn to shred. If anything, there seems to be more and more mistletoe appearing.

In Rose’s pillow case, above the stove, above the coat rack, sprouting from a dusty and dead potted petunia (Jackie’s rather pitiful attempt at gardening, obviously), and settling roots in the carpet and furniture itself.

The apartment is verdurous and lush and it’s quite apparent that the Doctor has never been, and will never be, tired of kissing Rose Tyler. It ranges from sweet, to lingering, to positively delicious, as he pushes her up against the doorway, and delves into her mouth, which tastes specifically of peppermint and something alcoholic. It makes his head spin, and it’s more Rose than the alcohol.

Her hands ghost up his sides, and he leans into her more fully, with his hands low on her waist. When her fingers tangle in his hair, pulling just enough to make him gasp into her mouth, he can feel her hum against him, and he moves his lips across her skin.

“Where,” he punctuates his words with kisses, “is all” behind her ear, “this mistletoe,” down her neck, “coming from?” And he moves to suck on her collarbone, before swirling his tongue in the hollow of her throat.

She tugs on the open neck of his shirt, tie hanging loose, to bring his mouth back to hers. She gives him one last long, sweet kiss, and then rests her forehead against his. He heavily leans over her, trapping her between his body and the door jamb. (Not that she seems to mind.)

“Not sure,” she says, still catching her breath. “But ‘s exhausting yeah?” The Doctor looks like he’d be offended, but there’s a good-natured smile on her face, and her fingers are hot at his waist through the thin material of his shirt, making his head spin just enough to be wonderful.

And with Rose Tyler’s breath whispering across his face and her hands slipping beneath his shirt and up the skin of his back, he can’t quite bring himself to care about mysteriously appearing mistletoe. It’s not deadly, it’s not hurting anyone, and, if anything, it’s helping him and Rose along quite nicely and rapidly growing mistletoe is much better than killer Christmas trees.

So he lets this whole mistletoe nonsense float to the back of his rather impressive Time Lord brain and melts into Rose’s warm mouth and eager lips.

~

Of course, when the Mistletoe (and the Doctor has deemed it a worthy adversary enough to give it the capital ‘M’) traps him beneath a particularly ruly sprig with Jackie Tyler, he thinks perhaps he should have taken a more investigative approach to this Mistletoe nonsense.

More specifically, to the tendrils or greenery wrapping around his and Jackie’s waist, pulling them together, their bodies touching in ways the Doctor would like to scrub from his mind. 

And it’s like this--his arms on Jackie’s shoulders, his hips pressed into hers, and their faces inches apart, both frantically pushing the other away--that Rose walks in on them. Her mouth drops open in surprise, her eyebrows pushing upwards dangerously close to her hairline, and her arms crossing in front of her body. 

“Doctor?” It’s wry, calm, and collected. It’s Rose under pressure and the Doctor feels his heartrates pick up because nothing makes him happier than Rose taking stock of a situation, evaluating and analyzing and processing. (Okay, maybe her tongue in his mouth and her hands skimming the waistband of his pants and groans and whimpers into his skin get him going as well, but it’s a close second). 

“Rose! You were right! Something is wrong with this Mistletoe. Judging by the tendrils and the suspicious growth and appearance rate, I’d say it’s from Clausian II. All we need is--”

“Clausian? As in Santa Claus? Are you telling me...Santa Claus is real?”

“Rose! This is hardly the time. Could you please get me out of this, because I don’t much fancy pressing certain parts of me into certain parts of her.” He frantically tries to push Jackie away, and she looks out him in outrage, not managing to sputter anything but profanity at him. “Rose,” he says after a silent moment, “my hands are tied, quite literally actually, and if you could just get the sonic out of my pocket...” he trails off as she strides forward, and he manages to nod to his left trouser pocket, where she sticks her hand and fishes out the screwdriver. (Still, he can feel her body heat radiate through his trouser pocket).

She quickly and quietly zaps the mistletoe with the sonic, and it makes a hasty retreat. The Doctor is out of the doorway and behind Rose before the sprig fully shrivels up and falls to the ground.

“Is it gone?” the Doctor asks, over Rose’s shoulder. She rolls her eyes, and hands him the sonic. “Can we leave now? Back to the TARDIS, do a bunk, tuck our tails, and split?” At this, Rose laughs, and takes his hand. She kisses her mother on the cheek and promises to call, as the Doctor is tugging her out of the flat, and down the stairs. He has his Very Serious face on, and only stops to look at her when they reach the TARDIS doors.

“You okay?” she asks, worriedly. He takes his free hand and ruffles the back of his hair, sending it into an even more rumpled state of disarray.

“Mistletoe,” he says. “Kissing.” Rose raises her eyebrows, expecting there to be more. He continues after a while. “Is that...um...blimey, words are difficult.” His eyebrows furrow, and after a moment, he seems to find the right words. “Rose Tyler. Would you be interested in kissing...without mistletoe? Sentient or otherwise?” 

“Who am I kissing?” Rose gives him her tongue-touched grin. He immediately flusters, not realizing she’s taking the mickey out of him, and starts to stutter.

“You daft alien,” she muses, and pulls him down by his tie to meet her lips. It’s quick, but warm and nice, and he comes away feeling lightheaded. Still, Rose seems to be thinking about something. “Did you get rid of all the mistletoe, or is my mum up there trapped in greenery?” The Doctor shrugs, and pulls Rose inside the TARDIS door.

“We can leave her there ‘til Christmas,” he says. “It won’t eat her...I think. Plus, I was hoping we could do some more of...” he trails off and raises his eyebrows hopefully.

Rose rolls her eyes yet again, and pulls him down for another snog.


End file.
